The ANTARES deep-sea neutrino telescope: Operation and calibration

The ANTARES detector is the worldʹs first operating deep-sea neutrino telescope. It is located at a depth of 2475 m in the Mediterranean Sea, close to Toulon, France. ANTARES comprises a three-dimensional array of 885 photomultipliers, designed to detect the Cherenkov light produced by neutrino-induced muons passing close to the detector. Since June 2008, the construction of the detector is complete. Various aspects of the detector construction are described and the methods adopted to calibrate in situ the efficiency, timing and positioning of the detector are presented.